By Victoria Sanchez and Jennifer Newton, Courier Staff Writers
On Tuesday, April 24th, the James Logan Advanced Concert Choir and the Chamber singers went to Angwin, California to compete in the Choir State Competition.
This competition is an invitation only event where the best choirs in the state are invited to compete. The winner of the previous year, San Ramon Valley High School, was the host of the event and the winner of this year’s competition would
host next year’s. The invited schools were Mount Eden, Monte Vista, Bakersfield, Castro Valley, and the winners of last year’s state competition San Ramon Valley High School and others.
The James Logan choir only recently started to be invited to compete in 2014 under the leadership of Erin McShane. The comparative choirs have been established longer that Logan’s and their experience has grown with time and the James Logan choir has only recently began. Every ongoing year they strive for their own excellence dedicating their time and energy to move up a place each year and keep improving their scores.
When they arrived to the competition the Advanced Choir singers had their soundcheck and went through their formations so when it was time to perform they would be prepared. Then the Chamber singers had their soundcheck and performed their set shortly after.
For both sections of the competition: Chamber and Concert Choir they both had a required piece that every school had to perform. For Chamber their required piece was “Ave Maria,” and the two other songs in the James Logan Chamber singers set was “And Love be Written on Running Water,” and “Gaur Akelarre.” For all the concert choir singers their required piece was called “Christus Factus Est,” and the other songs in the James Logan Advanced Concert Choir set was “Bach Again, Come Sweet Death,” and “J’entends Le Moulin.”
In the lineup the James Logan Concert Choir performed second to last of the seven total groups. After two to three performances there was a twenty minute break for the audience members. During the last break the Concert Choir singers has their warm up where they went through all their songs and had a last minute pep talk from their director Erin McShane and the ambassador of their concert Choir, Julian Hodgson, “I knew that we were capable of doing good, I wanted them to have a lot of confidence was we walked on the risers and set in our places. I’m proud to say I got to perform my last state competition with this group of people.”
Before the award winners were announced, the director of the San Ramon Valley High school Concert Choir, Ken Abrams, conducted the required piece for Chamber, “Ave Maria” and every student in the Chamber choirs got up and sang it all together. After the director from Monte Vista, Jodi Reed conducted all the schools for concert choir in the required piece, “Christus Factus Est.”
Pollen Reyes, a sophomore, said, “Even though we were competing against all the other choirs it was a really cool moment to all sing as one and forget about the pressure of the competition.”
The Chambers singers came in eighth place out of ten and the Advanced Concert Choir won fifth place out of seventh, which was the highest place in the history of Advanced choir in James Logan has ever had under the direction of Erin McShane. The competition was really close only dividing each place by two or three points. The first, second, third, and fourth place winners were called and had to sing one song from their set that wasn’t the required piece. The James Logan Advanced Concert Choir were only three points away from fourth place and being called up to sing.
From their experience this year, they will take the critiques and implement them for all future performances and will work twice as hard to come in fourth place at next year’s competition. They will continue to sing with passion and keep forth their hard working spirit.
